


He Kissed Me First

by Losyark



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: AU, Kidfic, M/M, Pre-Slash, fanfic of a fanfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-03
Updated: 2007-02-03
Packaged: 2018-01-13 04:49:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1213294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Losyark/pseuds/Losyark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Rodnies? Rodneys?  Rodni? How do you conjugate the plural?" John wondered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He Kissed Me First

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Farm in Iowa](https://archiveofourown.org/works/117555) by [sheafrotherdon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/pseuds/sheafrotherdon). 



> I adore Sheafrotherdon’s writing style, her tone and colours, and her characterizations. I love how she pulls you along like taffy to the end of the paragraph. I had a wonderful time playing her sandbox. My regular tone is far more bleak and stark than hers, and I had a hard time trying to recreate the mood of her work. Any feedback or suggestions would be more than appreciated. This is an AU of an AU. I blame you, Busse and Hellekson. ^_^

The earthy crunch of the tires of Rodney’s car over the gravel wasn’t an unfamiliar sound, but it _was_ unexpected. It was at least five days early. John padded out of the kitchen on bare feet, and stood on the porch with his hands the back pockets of his jeans as Rodney parked in what he (always) thought was a straight line beside the truck.

Rodney was out of the driver’s side before the engine had time to click to a full stop and rocketing at John. John opened his arms obligingly, wondered what military stooge or scientist put Rodney in such a foul mood that he felt obligated to come home and moan at his boyfriend immediately.

Not that John minded overmuch. The basement repairs for the Brennemans were done, so John had been staying home with Finn between handy jobs, and an afternoon filled with Rodney sounded just about right, as long as he could curtail the ranting that was clearly about to begin.

Rodney surprised John by stopping on the bottom step, suddenly hesitating, and staring up at John with such wide, baleful eyes that John wondered if perhaps Atlantis had blown up. That would be a shame – all that tech, all those people. All those Gateships.

“I’m sorry,” Rodney began, which was enough to make John drop his arms back to his sides in mild shock, “But he had no place to go. Well, I have all the research _here_ , _anyway,_ and I couldn’t just dump him in a hotel, could I? We have a perfectly good chesterfield, I mean, and there’s nothing to worry about because, you know, rapid cascade failure can’t set in because his DNA is different, and how fair is that that _he_ got the ATA gene and _I_ didn’t, I mean we’re _practically_ the same person--”

“Beckett’s gene therapy,” said another McKayish voice behind Rodney, but John wasn’t looking at him.

“ _Gene therapy?!_ ” Rodney sputtered and looked about five seconds away from a total Finn-style meltdown. “Beckett can’t get FDA approval!”

“Did it on Atlantis.”

“ _Atlantis!”_

“Hey, hey, buddy,” John said soothingly and dropped down the last two steps to wrap a severely freaked-out Rodney in his arms. “Breathe. In and out. Oxygen is our friend, remember.”

“Yes, yes,” Rodney said irritably, but did as he was told.

“Now,” John said into Rodney’s spiky, stressed out, over-stimulated, all-over-the-place hair. “Again. Slowly.”

“ _Look at him, John._ ”

John did as _he_ was told. He looked up, at the man who had come out of the car after Rodney. He was wearing the science blues of Atlantis, but the outer shell was the grey of combatants rather than the civilian-tan that Rodney always wore. His hair was the same cropped sandy colour, his nose the same sharp and obstinate point that John had kissed to soothe his boyfriend countless times, his posture the same _What the hell is that?_ stance that John knew well from the days when Rodney was still changing Finn’s diapers.

The man was Rodney.

Only not, because clearly Rodney was in John’s arms.

Rodney’s stories of Asurans and Replicators and Clones filled John’s mind in a white-hot blur. _“Rodney,”_ John said tightly, between his teeth. He felt his fists tighten in the back of Rodney’s shirt, and didn’t relax them.

Rodney disengaged himself from his limpet grasp on John’s waist and turned to face the other man, which John’s hand-holds in the back of his shirt made a bit awkward and twisty. “It’s not my _fault_ ,” he protested immediately, and it sounded like he’d been saying something along a similar vein every five seconds since he’d left for Colorado two mornings ago.

“Sheppard?” the other Rodney said. “What the hell? What is _Sheppard_ doing out here, looking like some sort of... of... _farmer_! In _Iowa_ _._ And _why_ do you live in Iowa? And why _the hell do you live with **him**?_ ”

Rodney looked up at John with a sort of guilty cast to his gaze.

“Oh my _god_ you’re _gay?”_ the other Rodney shrieked.

From the partially open window with the cloud curtains above the porch came a loud and frustrated “You’s _too noisy!”_

Rodney – his Rodney – groaned, and John pinched the bridge of his nose as the tell-tale sounds of a Finn-monster stomping down the stairs rang out. By the heaviness of the footfall, John could tell they were about three seconds away from a tantrum that was going to be at least an 8 out of 10.

Inside the house Burp started barking, which got the chicks squawking, so when Finn threw back the screen door and scowled mightily with the crooked mouth he had inherited from his father, resplendent in his anger and his airplane pyjamas, the whole house was simply awash with piercing, domestic chaos.

“You’s too noisy!” Finn repeated, arms folded across a little chest. “ _No little sleep.”_

“I just put him _down_ , Rodney,” John hissed, and turned back to leap up the stairs and stand before his son. “Sorry ‘bout that, ‘jumper,” John said in his most soothing voice. “These... uh... guys, are going to go back into the pasture for a nice long _talk_ , and you and I will go back in and finish our naps.”

“Don’ _wanna_ ,” Finn said mutinously. “Baffaaaaaaaa.”

John upped his internal tantrum-o-meter from an eight to a nine.

“Look,” John said with a little more desperation than a man who flew alien spaceships one week a month ought to, and pointed in some vague direction behind him.   “Daddy’s home early.”

Finn blinked, eyes cutting between the two men on the front lawn, and barrelled down the porch to wrap his arms around the knees of the one in the Atlantis uniform. “Daddy!” he bawled, and immediately burst into over-tired, three and a half year old tears. “Baffa’s meaaaaaaaaaan.”

“Daddy?” the other Rodney repeated weakly, knees starting to wobble and all the colour sliding off his face.

“No, John, catch him--”

The other Rodney’s eyes rolled up into his head, and he fell to the ground before John could even take a step, dragging Finn down on top of him. Finn laughed uproariously, tears and interrupted nap-time forgotten, and crawled up the unconscious man’s legs to sit on his chest.

“Yous silly, Daddy!”

“He fainted,” Rodney – John’s Rodney – said softly.

“Passed out from manly hunger,” John corrected.

Rodney cut him a scornful glance, and went to collect his son.

* * *

“This is Fruitcake,” Finn said, poking the fuzzy yellow head of a pale chick with a pudgy, peanut buttery finger. Then he poked at the brown spotted one. “An’ this one is Baby Jesus.” Both of the chicks began mouthing at Finn’s finger, opening small beaks to nip at the remnants of peanutty debris.

“Fruitcake and Baby Jesus,” the other Rodney repeated weakly, his face still completely white, except for two mottled spots of colour high on his cheekbones.

“An’ that’s Burp,” Finn said, standing to point at the mutt that was sprawled contentedly on the living room sofa, watching them from his position, chin resting on paws that were crossed over the arm of the chair like a sentinel.

Burp had no problems telling which Rodney was his. He seemed to take issue with the impostor, especially around Finn.

John watched all of this silently, one hip rucked up against the kitchen counter, eyes narrowed to take in the man who was, but was _not_ , his Rodney.

While they had been moving the unconscious man into the living room, taking off his boots and laying him across the sofa that Burp now occupied, trying to explain to Finn that _no_ , this was _not_ Daddy, ( _that_ was Daddy and this man only looked like him a lot and do you want some peanut butter toast, ‘jumper?) Rodney was babbling about sub-space and alternate realities and something called a Quantum Mirror which ought to have been locked up under the SGC so _how_ this Rodney got on _Atlantis_ was a bit of a mystery.

Then the other Rodney had sat up with an aborted, _“Kavanaugh!_ What the _hell_ did you put in my... oh.”

And now he was getting the grand tour, Finn McKay-style.

“Burp,” the other Rodney said faintly. He turned weary but amused eyes to John. “Very grade three. I suppose that was your idea, Sheppard.”

John blinked, stood up straighter. “Uh, Finn’s mostly,” he said. _Sheppard_ , he said to himself, hearing the way that this Rodney used it as if it was his only name. A shield. A purposeful de-intimating.

An almighty bang and a cuss from above their heads said that John’s Rodney was still searching for his research on the Quantum Mirror in the Tupperware bins at the top of the office closet.

“Dollar inna Finn jar!” Finn hollered with glee.

The other Rodney stood, wiped the peanut butter and the dog fur on the thighs of his creased trousers, and regarded John with the same sort of look that his Rodney usually proffered food that came out of the dirt.

“So you. And him.”

“Yeah.”

“Huh. Are you... what, married?”

“Not legally but... yeah.” John nodded. “Aren’t you and...?”

“What, the Colonel?” Rodney snorted. “He’s the Kirk of the Pegasus Galaxy and his libido has gotten us into trouble more times than I could possibly count. Well, of course not, _possibly_ count because of course _I_ could count it, but it’s a figure of speech. What I mean to say is that I couldn’t get him away from his line of Space Bimbos even if I wanted to!”

John blinked again, slowly this time, as if in defiance of the utter _speed_ of this Rodney’s words. He was like John’s Rodney, but three years ago before sun-soaked summers and fantastic blowjobs and a rambunctious son had leeched most of the pent up frustration from him.

“ _Do_ you want to?” John asked.

The other Rodney scowled and looked away, eyes drawn back to the chick-box on the kitchen floor.

“Baffa?” Finn asked, coming up to wrap a little fist into the worn knee of John’s jeans.

“Yeah, puddlejumper?” John asked, looking down. The other Rodney gave a sort of strangled, snorting moan.

“Whassa Space Biminbo?”

* * *

Over a guaranteed citrus free dinner, which John had forcefully dragged the Rodneys ( _Rodnies? Rodni? How do you conjugate the plural?_ John wondered) down stairs and out of the study and away from computer simulations to eat, Other Rodney -as John had come to think of him- raised his head from his pasta and said, “So why aren’t you still in the Air Force?”

John cut a glance to Finn, happily trying to snort the spaghetti up his nose, and said in a hushed voice, “Um. There was this... this black mark....” He didn’t really want to talk about it with this stranger, even if Other Rodney was exactly like His Rodney, except for the whole Ancient Gene and not being married to John, and not having a kid, nor apparently being gay, thing.

Other Rodney waved that away with a fork laden with twirled up noodles. He got sauce on his lapel and John had to clench his fists on his knees under the table to keep from reaching out to wipe it away. His Rodney made a noise and pointed to it, and Other Rodney dabbed it with a napkin. John let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and forced his shoulders down, away from his ears.

“I know about Afghanistan,” Other Rodney said casually. “Crazy aliens got into our brains. Unpleasant all around, because I was _so close_ to scoring with that cute brunette next door but then Sheppard figured it out, the _bastard._ ”

“The model?” His Rodney asked, perking up.

“Yeah,” Other Rodney said wistfully. “Only it was alien mind games you know, but we all found out what happened in Afghanistan, so for you I assume it was the same. I mean, why aren’t _you_ on Atlantis, too? Why are you two playing house _here_? In the _country._ ”

John forced himself to take a large bite of the spaghetti, chew it thoroughly, and swallow before answering. “Grandpa died,” he said, biting off the words, trying to sound civil and feeling like his brain was about to explode. This man knew about his deepest shames and secrets and just... babbled them. All over the place. John wondered how often Other John had whacked Other Rodney in the back of the head, like he wanted to so badly right this moment. “Left me the farm. I _had_ to come back.”

John didn’t explain that the farm would have waited for him if he had done another tour, that he could have kept it and kept flying, or that he could have sold it easily. His need was bone-deep, soul-deep. John had _needed_ Iowa then just like His Rodney needed it now.

Other Rodney poked at his spaghetti and ‘hmmmed’. “I don’t know if Sheppard’s Grandpa’s dead. He doesn’t talk about it. Doesn’t talk about his family at all. That must be it – you never flew General O’Neill to the Ancient Base in Antarctica.”

“Was going to,” John said softly. “But then my tour was up and I came home, and they gave it to someone else.”

His Rodney jerked his head up, away from where he was wiping the Prego off of Finn’s forehead. “What, if John had flown the General we... we’d be on Atlantis? Together?”

Other Rodney coloured.

“Right, not _together_ together,” His Rodney said hastily, “but you know, working together?”

Other Rodney puffed out his chest a little. “The Colonel and I are on the same offworld team.”

“Offworld team?” His Rodney asked, paling a bit, the thought of all those guns and running and alien pollens singularly unpleasant.

“Colonel?” John cut in, meaning to have brought it up sooner, but never having the opportunity.

“ _Lieutenant_ Colonel,” Other Rodney corrected, “actually. But he _is_ the Military leader of Atlantis.”

John sat back in his chair, letting his fork drop onto his plate, suddenly not hungry. He rubbed his hands up and down over his face, as if he could scrub away this feeling of ... what, panic? Despair? Ickiness, John settled on.

Military leader. That means no Rodney. No kids. No farm. Probably no flying. No hot gay sex with his hotter gay boyfriend, at any rate.

_I bet he’s miserable,_ John thought. _No wonder he’s sleeping a swatch across the Pegasus galaxy._

“What about Finn?” His Rodney asked and John was _grateful grateful grateful_ that his boyfriend could read his body language and know enough to change the subject.

_So owe you a blowjob_ , he promised with his eyes.

_Yeah, I know,_ Rodney’s said back. Then he turned back to Other Rodney.

“Did his mother...” Rodney stopped, looked at his son and said, “Finn, go get your model Blackhawk to show Mr. McKay, I’m sure he’d like it.” He waited until Finn was pounding up the stairs before he said, “Did Katie Brown keep him?”

“Katie Brown?!” Other Rodney sputtered, and did a great impression of snorting beer up his nose. There was a general scramble for more paper towels before the beer-and-snot-mix ended up spreading across the table. “You slept with _Katie Brown?_ I thought you were gay!”

“He _made_ me gay,” Rodney said, jerking a thumb in John’s direction. “Before that I wasn’t.” His Rodney’s lips slid downwards, and his eyebrows lowered. “I may be a brilliant scientist but even I can’t spontaneously have a child without a _womb_ or you know, _eggs_.”

“I thought he was adopted!” the Other Rodey protested, still wiping his nose on the paper towel that John had put into his hand.

“He’s mine,” Rodney said darkly. Then: “ _Ours_.”

Other Rodney held up his hands. “Okay, okay,” he said. “ _No,_ Katie didn’t want Finn,” Other Rodney said softly, as if trying to lessen a blow. John swallowed, sure he wasn’t going to like what the Other Rodney was about to say, “because I never slept with Katie Brown. We met on Atlantis –we had one extremely awkward date, the results of which I do not feel like explain, oh, say, _ever_.”

“No casual sex at CalTech?” His Rodney asked softly.

“Katie wasn’t at CalTech. I didn’t meet her until the Expedition. But... Katie Brown died three months ago on Atlantis. Wraith. In my reality, there is no Finn.”

Then he looked down at the Blackhawk model that was being pressed into his hands, belonging to a little boy who did not, never could exist in his world, and John thought maybe the horrible crawling feeling in his stomach meant that he was going to be sick.

* * *

Other Rodney had enough pasta sauce on his shirt to warrant John offering to do a load of laundry, so both Rodneys disappeared upstairs to find him something suitable to wear for the rest of the evening. John and Finn played a game about what if there were two Finns, and put the red-stained dishes into the washer.

When they were finished, John sat down at the kitchen table, still damp from running the sink sponge over it, and pulled Finn on his lap. With the intuition of children, Finn sat still and looked up into John’s face and said, “What’s wrong, Baffa?”

“Nuthin’, puddlejumper,” John said, holding Finn tight against him, pressing his cheek into the boy’s wild hair, breathing in the scent of Prego and dirt and flying and bacon and cookies.

Finn squirmed in his tight embrace. “Baffa, yous silly,” he said, reach up a hand to pet the side of John’s face gently.

“Yeah, I’m silly,” John agreed, voice and arms shaking, and let Finn down. The kid went immediately over to tell Fruitcake and Baby Jesus a story about the two Finns.

In the doorway, someone cleared a throat, and John looked up to find Rodney watching with wide blue eyes and slightly parted lips. Unable to hold back all of the emotion vibrating in his centre, John sprang out of the chair and grabbed Rodney by the buttons of his hideous short-sleeved grey-brown shirt and pressed their mouths together as if Rodney was the only thing in the world that could keep John from shaking apart.

“Mm noff hmmph,” Rodney said.

John pulled back to let him speak. “What?”

“I said...” Rodney licked his lips with a wet tongue. “I’m not him.”

John took a horrified step back, heart stopping in his chest and his breath stuck somewhere between his adam’s apple and stomach. He released the shirt, fingers white and shaking. He looked the Other Rodney up and down – still wearing the Atlantis pants, but that was Rodney’s shirt, _His_ Rodney’s shirt. He looked just the same in it, only... John reached out slowly, giving Other Rodney time to move away.

When he didn’t, John circled his wrist carefully with strong fingers and lifted his right arm into the light. A long, thin line of scar tissue ran in a puffy ridge from the middle of the underside of his forearm up to the inside of his elbow. It looked newish, healed but not old enough to have been from his childhood.

“What’s this?” John asked gently.

Other Rodney jerked back, breaking John’s grip, and folded his arm protectively across his chest. “There was a coup,” he said, slowly, reluctantly. “Some nazi-style assholes suck in the 1950s tried to take over Atlantis. We resisted.”

John’s eyebrows caterpillered up towards his hairline, making the obvious leap of logic. “They tortured you?”

“Among other personnel,” Other Rodney sniffed. John knew his own Rodney well enough to know that under any other normal circumstances, this Rodney would be ranting and exclaiming about how brave and heroic he had been, how he had _earned_ the scar and _gosh_ how it had hurt and all manner of other blustery things.

But this Rodney seemed far too out of sorts over the kiss – _oh god I kissed another man_ – to prattle.

“I just came down to give you this,” Other Rodney said, holding out the stained blue science shirt.

John took it with numb fingers, said “I’ll do a load. C’mon ‘jumper, wanna help your Baffa?”, when he wanted to say _I’m sure it hurts your John to see that as much as it hurts me._

* * *

_When John was awoken by the sound of the random clink of cups wafting up from downstairs, he could tell that Rodney – _his_ Rodney - had not come to bed yet. He rolled over and glanced at the sky through the window – early morning, it told him. He turned his head in the other direction to confirm this against the clock, which saidthree twenty seven._

John shook his head, pulled on a tee-shirt that said ‘Pilots do it at Mach 5’ because he was still so damned embarrassed for mixing up the Rodneys, so no way was he showing up bare-chested, and padded slowly down stairs. As he suspected, they were in the kitchen, sitting at the table and talking while the coffee maker gurgled out what was probably its tenth or eleventh pot of coffee since His Rodney had parked the car earlier that afternoon.

“He didn’t mean to,” Other Rodney murmured softly, and John hovered just at the foot of the stairs, looking into the kitchen, so he could see their pants and tell who was who. Other Rodney was also a little slimmer, John noticed, now that he could see both of them in profile. More muscle and less pudge, probably because he _was_ on an off world team, and John knew if he had _his_ Rodney on a field team, his Rodney would be running two miles every morning, complaining or not.

Actually, that was a thought. It would probably do wonders for Rodney’s blood pressure, if he could just convince his boyfriend.

“It was a mistake,” Other Rodney went on. “He was.. .distraught. You know how John gets, all puppyish and emotional. He couldn’t tell us apart. He just lunged. I should have seen it coming, his eyebrows were doing that... that _thing_.” John reached up and touched his eyebrows. They didn’t do a _thing_. “I’m sure he’ll tell you himself once he’s got the chance. I’m sorry.”

Rodney, John’s Rodney, drummed his fingers on the table top, his face closed and unreadable. “Hm,” he said, and John swallowed hard. Oh, they were both was in trouble all right. John didn’t quite personally think it was fair, of course – it was Rodney’s own fault for being so hot to begin with.

“I can...” Other Rodney said softly. “If you want. I can go back to Colorado. Fly on the Air Force’s dime.”

“No,” His Rodney said bluntly. “That’s stupid. Just make sure you keep your Atlantis uniform on. I need you here. Two McKays are better than one.”

Other McKay groaned. “That’s what Elizabeth said when we had Rod.”

“Rod?” His McKay asked, perking up a bit. “You’ve had a visitor, too?”

“That’s why I was playing with the matter bridge in the first place,” Other Rodney confessed. “Wanted to see if I could find a way to send a transmission through to his world – make sure he made it back alright. Jeannie... Jeannie was asking about him.”

“He met Jeannie? And... _Rod_?”

“I know, I could never get anyone to call _me_ that,” Other Rodney scoffed. An idea lit on his face. “You close to Jeannie?”

His Rodney squirmed a bit in his seat, then shot out of it and towards the coffee pot, which had just beeped to let the world know it had finished its duty. His Rodney stalled by filling mugs.

“Got cream?” Other Rodney asked.

“John doesn’t buy it. Milk okay?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. Brave man,” Other Rodney said. They sat back at the table. “So... Jeannie?”

“We’re better now,” His Rodney said. “Better than before. We visit. Call on Sundays.”

“Easier to do when you’re Earthbound.”

“Yeah,” His Rodney said, a little wistful, obviously thinking about living permanently on Atlantis, surrounded by tech and the ocean and aliens. “She’s got kids.”

“Madison, Robbie and Bradley?”

His Rodney blinked, came back down to Iowa. “Uh, Maddy and Bradley. Robbie’s what’s making her waddle right now, I assume.”

“She’ll kick your ass if you say that to her face.” Other Rodney drank off half of his coffee then stood and went back to the coffee maker, brought the pot back to top them both off. “Just Maddy, in my reality. You... uh... you their godfather?”

His Rodney jumped slightly. “No. Are you?”

“No, but Rod was.”

“Huh.”

Other Rodney grimaced. “He was a jerk, anyway. Perfect. Great hair. Stupid leather jacket. Too nice. Slimy actually. Got on everyone’s nerves. And _his_ Sheppard was in Mensa, a math geek, and totally overbearing.”

His Rodney snorted. “I can’t imagine... I think I got the good deal.”

Other Rodney looked down into his coffee and said nothing.

“Right,” His Rodney said. “I bet the simulation’s done by now. Once we figure out the numbers, we can get you back to Colorado, then to Atlantis. Zelenka can make the adjustments we need, and then the Dedalus can beam you into the matter stream.”

“I know the math already,” Other Rodney said, getting wearily to his feet. “Jeannie and I did it with Hermiod. It’ll only take a day, at most.”

His Rodney blinked. “Jeannie helped you?”

Other Rodney grinned a bit sheepishly. “I bullied her into it.”

His Rodney made a sort of snorting sound, poured the last of the coffee into their cups, and headed towards the stairs. By the time he got there, John had already tiptoed back to bed.

* * *

The next morning’s ritual battle of wills was made even more tense by Finn’s inability to quite understand why there were _two_ Daddies. While it had been fun and cool yesterday, it was frustrating and scary to a three year old first thing in the morning to be told by a man who looked exactly like your Dad that, “No, I’m not getting you applejuice, kid. What are you, blind?”

John grabbed Finn’s shoulder and steered him towards the chicks before the boy could burst into tears, and hissed over his shoulder, “You’re just _fantastic_ with kids, McKay!”

“What?” Other Rodney asked, face a blank question of confusion. “What did I do?”

John slammed around the kitchen, pulling down Finn’s plastic breakfast cup, banging open the fridge door, pouring out the juice and tossing the empty carton into the trash with force enough to make Finn whimper and Other Rodney cringe.

Finn accepted his juice and escaped quickly into the living room to sit on Burp and watch morning cartoons.

“You can’t just call a kid _stupid_ , McKay!” John snarled angrily once Finn was preoccupied by the Ninja Turtles, his distress showing in small hiccoughing sniffs, “Especially when you look just like his _father_.”

Other Rodney blinked slowly, and understanding dawned on his face. He cut a glance between Finn, sniffling on the couch, and John, seething with fury beside the fridge. “Oh,” he said softly.

“Yeah, _oh_ ,” John snapped, and turned his back on Other Rodney to open the filter of the coffee maker and toss away the cold damp grounds from the night before.

“I... I didn’t think,” Other Rodney said softly.

“ _Obviously_ ,” John snarled.

“Look, I... I’m not brilliant at this kind of thing, okay? I have two PhDs and neither of them are in, you know, domestics one-oh-one. I’m not around kids a lot – I send Zelenka to the Lord of the Flies planet when their generator needs work. My father was terrible, so I never learned anything from him. He was always calling me lazy and stupid and— _Oh._ ”

John heard the chair legs scrape back, the thock of ceramic being set down on a wooden table, and footsteps going out into the living room.

John turned away from the sink, watching Other Rodney approach Finn warily, ready to spring into action any second.

“I’m sorry,” Other Rodney said softly. Finn sniffled once, long and wet. Other Rodney grimaced, knelt to be eye level, and went on. “Look, you’re not blind. It’s my fault, I look just like your... your Dad. Can I make it up to you? Get you... I dunno, cereal or whatever it is that three year olds eat for breakfast?”

“Three an’ a _half_ ,” Finn corrected with a stormy face.

“Three and a half,” Other Rodney repeated with a slight, uncomfortable smile sitting in the corner of his mouth, as if it wasn’t quite sure if it should be there or not. “That’s a lot older than three. So what do you say?”

Finn puffed out his cheeks and looked down into his cup.

“Puddlejumper,” John prompted from the kitchen.

“Yes,” Finn said.

“Yes _what?”_ John added.

“Yes, _please.”_

Finn accepted Other Rodney’s hand and together they walked back into the kitchen. Finn clambered up into his usual chair, and John handed Other Rodney Finn’s plastic bowl, his spoon, a box of Cheerieos (apple cinnamon) and the jug of milk.

Once Finn was munching happily, his worry not forgotten but settled, Other Rodney accepted a fresh, steaming cup of coffee from John and leaned back against the counter with an expression suggesting that pleasing Finn was a harder and more exhausting task than escaping from the Wraith, which John supposed it probably was.

“ _Thank you_ ,” Other Rodney said gratefully, clutching the mug between his long, blunt fingers. John pointedly looked away, determined not to have any dirty fantasies about those fingers when they weren’t actually his boyfriend’s. “So... puddlejumper?”

“He likes to run around in the puddles,” John said in a ‘duh’ tone of voice.

“That’s what my Sheppard called the Gateships. Puddlejumpers.”

John cracked a smirk. “I thought they were a little small for such a grand name like Gateship. Boring too.”

“That’s what my Sheppard said. Finn likes puddles?”

“Usually in red boots and this hideous cowboy hat that Laura gave him. And little else.”

“Laura?”

“Cadman, his babysitter.”

Other Rodney sprayed coffee all over the floor, and Finn laughed, and Other Rodney cussed, and Finn said, “Dollar inna Finn jar!”

Other Rodney grabbed the paper towels from beside the microwave and began to mop at the coffee and said, “Finn Jar?”

“It’s Finn’s moneies!” Finn said, standing up on his chair and pointing with his milky spoon at the rusty coffee can on the shelf above the stove with a strip of masking tape over the front and the faded word ‘ **FINN** ’ written in John’s hand on the front. “For when Finn needs... thear—terra-”

“Therapy,” John supplied.

“Therapees!” Finn crowed.

Other Rodney quirked an eyebrow.

“Or a college education, whichever comes first,” John said with an amiable smile. “On your bum, puddlejumper,” John added, and Finn sat back down on his chair with a bump and resumed fishing Cheerios out of the milk with his fingers.

“Laura Cadman,” Other Rodney said slowly, his teeth bared slightly, as he put the soggy paper towels in the garbage.

“I loves Laura!” Finn elected to add to the conversation.

“You _would_ ,” Other Rodney said.

“What’s so bad about Laura?” John’s Rodney said from the door way, hair sticking every which way and his shirt twisted and rumpled, lines from the pillow still imprinted on his cheek, clear evidence that he had just stumbled down stairs five seconds earlier. “Besides her being an English Major. Oh, I love you.”

John was holding out a third cup of coffee and His Rodney shuffled across the kitchen on the bottoms of the pyjama pants that were too long on him because they were actually John’s, took the offered coffee with all the reverence of handling a ZPM, and leaned up to treat John to a morning-breath kiss.

Other Rodney flushed and looked away.

“What’s wrong with Laura?” His Rodney asked again, and if he noticed how uncomfortable the kiss had made Other Rodney, he said nothing.

_Payback’s a bitch_ , John thought, letting the men make faces at each other across his body. _That’s what you get for letting someone else’s boyfriend kiss you. Guess I may be forgiven._

“She hijacked my body,” Other Rodney said.

John and his Rodney exchanged a glance.

“She what now?” John asked slowly, shaking his head slightly as if that would jostle something into place and make Other Rodney’s words any more sane and any less like a bad episode of Star Trek.

“Laura Cadman is a marine and Atlantis’ explosive expert. There was an accident with a Wraith culling beam, and her consciousness got stuck in my head.” He made a twiddly fingered gesture at his own temple. “It was hideous. We had to... to share.”

“Oh my god,” Rodney said, eyes wide as he was envisioning what would be, clearly, his worst nightmare. Though John wasn’t sure if that nightmare was Laura with a gun and the knowhow to rig bombs, or Laura in the same body as him.

Other Rodney leaned in, relishing the look of horror on his counterpart’s face. Payback certainly _was_ a bitch.

“She made me kiss _Carson_.”

“ _Shit_ ,” His Rodney said.

“Monnies inna Finn jar!”

* * *

“Radek Zelenka,” Other Rodney said.

John’s Rodney chewed thoughtfully on his sandwich. “Head of Science in Atlantis.”

Finn turned his head to wait for Other Rodney’s response, enraptured by the talking mirror images of his father. John wondered if he would ever be one of those strange men who preferred tennis over baseball or hockey.

“My number two. Teyla Emmagen.”

“Our diplomatic liaison in Pegasus.”

“Ha! On my team! Oh, Ronan Dex.”

His Rodney blanked, so John said, “English Major at the University of Iowa. He specializes in poetry.”

Other Rodney’s mouth dropped open, spraying a rather unattractive spread of crumbs and half-chewed lettuce across the table top. “I... _what?_ ”

His Rodney frowned. “Why, what is he in your reality? A marine? He’s big enough. Or maybe a linguist?”

“A Satedan!” Other Rodney yelped. “An alien!”

“Ronon Dex is an alien?” John asked. “From Pegasus.”

Other Rodney nodded vigorously around a new bite of his own sandwich.

“Maybe he is here, too. I did wonder at his surname,” His Rodney admitted. “And only aliens would write turgid poetry about masculinity. And keep knives in their hair.”

“Whossa aliem, Baffa?” Finn asked.

“English majors,” John said helpfully. Someone kicked him under the table and John wasn’t sure which Rodney it was.

* * *

By dinner time that day, the numbers had been run and settled, and the math all checked out. It was sitting in a pristine folder on the top of the study desk, the door tightly locked against Finn’s curiosity and Burp’s affinity for Rodney’s emergency stash of chocolate.

In the morning Other Rodney and His Rodney would be driving back to Colorado, then ‘gating over to Atlantis, where Zelenka had made the necessary modifications to the matter bridge equipment to send Other Rodney back to his own reality.

The meal was less strained than the last few had been, mostly because Finn had gotten his nap in today, and John had taken him out to help out with an oil change that Martha didn’t actually need that morning in order to give the Rodneys time to work in peace.

“A whole solar system?” John repeated, aghast.

“Five eighths,” Other Rodney corrected defensively. “And it was uninhabited!”

“ _Boom!”_ Finn said.

Other Rodney looked vaguely ashamed. “Yeah, boom. But, that’s where we originally got the idea for the matter bridge to being with.”

_“Jeannie_ got the idea for the matter bridge,” John pointed out with a wave of his beer.

Other Rodney huffed. “Well, it’s where we got the _idea_ to _use_ it.”

“Huh,” His Rodney said. “But the problem with the creation of exotic particles--”

“If we’re not drawing energy from subspace--”

“—yes of course, then there would be no creation--”

“—so all it does is open a bridge--”

“—allowing matter to pass through--”

“—like a person, or, or a databurst!--”

“—filled with research--”

“--different things we each know--”

“—we can warn you about the Genii--”

“—the explosive air-fresheners--”

“—the talking _whales--_ ”

“—just like through a faucet!”

Both of the Rodneys beamed at each other.

John blinked, trying to catch up with what had just been said. Then he smiled, things slotting into place, and said, “Cool. Long distance telephone.”

* * *

Once the ritual of getting Finn bathed and brushed and pyjama-ed and storied and tucked in was complete, all three men settled down on the couch in the living room, Burp laying across His Rodney’s feet, and opened beers.

Other Rodney had wanted coffee, but John had forbidden them any more until the sun rose again. Other Rodney had called John a bossy jerk, just like his Sheppard, and John was pleased to hear that if Sheppard wasn’t Other Rodney’s lover, at least he was making sure Other Rodney wasn’t vibrating himself into caffeinated oblivion.

They spoke long into the night and well into half a case of beer about pretty much nothing – stories from around campfires, daring last minute saves, moronic suicide runs with nuclear warheads, mathematical discrepancies, toilet training, Friday nights at Mitch’s bar, Laura’s wedding, and idiots who didn’t know the sound of a tire about to burst.

When Other Rodney went in stumbling search of the bathroom, John leaned across the couch and kissed his own Rodney soundly on the mouth. His Rodney moaned into the dampness, hands digging into his hair.

“Too long,” John panted as they separated, and Rodney began to mouth his way down past John’s stubble to suck at the little place just under his earlobe. “Miss you.”

“Miss... you too,” Rodney said, scraping his teeth back up to bite John’s lower lip. “Can’t wait to get him gone.”

John chuckled, let Rodney lick open his mouth, slid his hand up under Rodney’s worn cotton tee-shirt to press against warm flesh. “Want him gone that bad?”

“Want you more.”

“Is it weird, having him around?”

Rodney made a frustrated sound and slid over into John’s lap, straddling his thighs, the heat obvious through his jeans. “John Sheppard, you shut the hell up when I’m trying to seduce you.”

“This is seducing?” John said, but let his head fall back, closed his eyes and relished the blunt fingers slipping under his shirt, teasing the trail of hair that ran from John’s navel, along his belly and disappeared under the elastic of his boxers.

Rodney went back to sucking on John’s neck, marking him, _mine_ , distinguishing this John Sheppard from the other one.

Behind the back of the couch, the Other Rodney cleared his throat.

John and Rodney froze, craned their heads around, faces pulsing red.

“I, uh,” the Other Rodney said. “If you wanted to... go ... up... upstairs, I’ll... I can make up the chesterfield...”

“Right. Yes,” John’s Rodney said, yanking John to his feet and up the stairs. “Good idea. Excellent. Yes. Good night!”

John let himself be dragged past Finn’s room to their own bedroom, thrust inside, and heard the door shut heavily behind him. Rodney was back on John in a nanosecond, fingers fumbling for John’s belt.

“Wait up,” John said, letting himself get steered back towards the bed but reaching down to close his hands around Rodney’s. “We’re not having sex with _him_ in the house. It’d be _weird._ ”

“The hell we’re not,” Rodney said against the wet patch on John’s neck. Something in John’s middle tightened up and he blinked a few times to try to remember what he had been protesting, exactly. “I won’t be back for a _week_ at least and I’m not going with out my ‘come home safely sex’.”

“It’s not ‘come home safely sex’,” John protested. The back of his knees hit the mattress and he landed heavily on his ass. Rodney pushed him over, kept going, until John was on his back and Rodney was arched on his knees over John’s chest.

“The fuck it’s not,” Rodney growled against John’s cheek. “Shirt. Off. Now.”

John struggled to comply, trying to get his hands between Rodney and his shirt, but Rodney made an impatient sound, slapped them away, and stripped it up, over his head with an efficient tug. His own shirt came away just as easily.

John shimmied backwards, until he was in the middle of the bed, and closed his eyes and let Rodney just touch him _everywhere_.

“Can you imagine?” Rodney said, hands pushing down jeans and shoving away socks, “That Rodney and that John and they don’t do this?”

“Don’t ruin the mood, Rodney,” John panted, even as Rodney’s tongue dipped into his navel, making him start with surprise.

Rodney kissed a wet line to the seam in John’s skin where the muscles of his thigh stretched into his pelvis. “That Rodney doesn’t kiss John here,” Rodney pressed his lips to the spot, then scratched it with his top teeth. John sucked in a shuddering gasp and jammed his fist into his mouth, determined not to cry out and wake Finn or worse, the Other Rodney. “That Rodney doesn’t do this,” Rodney said, kissing the side of John’s stirring cock. “Or this,” and John’s dick was safe and snug and wet and hot in Rodney’s mouth.

Rodney was in no mood to go slow and John wasn’t about to stop him. That clever tongue swirled, pulsed, pushed; John turned inside out. Shivering down from his aftermath, John groped along the side of the bed as Rodney licked his lips, and pulled open the drawer of the bedstand, took out the lube, and squeezed a bit out on his fingers.

He reached down between their bodies with his slick hand, took hold of Rodney’s cock and pulled him up for a kiss. Rodney groaned into John’s mouth, panting and flushed and grinding and _so close_ , but John made him stop, rearranged their legs so John’s thighs were on the outside of Rodney’s, pushed up, bumped against Rodney demandingly.

Rodney took the lube from John’s hand, warmed a little on his fingers with a huffing breath, worked a finger into John, then two.

When he slid into John, it was the most perfect thing in _any_ reality, and John felt so, so sorry for the Other John, because he didn’t have this, never could, and it made him sad, even though he came again with sparks flashing behind is eyes.

* * *

The next morning, Other Rodney didn’t seem to be able to meet John’s eyes.

All through breakfast Finn chatted aimlessly, making up a story about Two Daddies and Two Finns and Fruitcake and Burp and Baby Jesus – the chick, not the guy from church – and Baffa going to the river to skate in summer.

When it was over, His Rodney went back upstairs to fetch the file folders and Finn went to show Burp how to dance like the Sparkle Ladies from Laura’s Nutcracker book, and John and Other Rodney were left alone in the kitchen to nurse the bottom of the pot.

“Sorry about last night,” John said. “I guess it was...”

“Weird?” Other Rodney supplied. “Definitely weird. Weird and strange and unsettling and let’s not ever talk about it ever again.”

“Looking forward to going home?”

“ _Yes_.”

There was another long, awkward silence, and then John stood, took his cup over to the sink, dumped out the cold coffee and began to load the breakfast plates into the dishwasher without rinsing off the blobs of peanut butter and jam first.

“You know,” John said after a long moment. He kept his face carefully aimed out the little window above the sink, eyes on the vegetable patch as if watching for the damned rabbits that were always making a break for his radishes. “You know,” he started again, after a deep breath. “That night. The first one. Rodney kissed me first.”

The sound of the Other Rodney’s chair scraping back was sudden, but not unexpected. John sighed as he followed the footfalls with an attuned ear, out across the living room, to the door, which was slammed back, and out onto the deck.

John let out a deep sigh, felt the tension drain from his shoulders, and wondered what had possessed him to say that.

* * *

Six days later, Finn and John were squeezed into his treehouse trying to figure out how to escape from the dragon barking at the base of the tree when Finn’s head shot up and he cried out, “Daddy’s car!” and clambered down the planks of wood nailed into the tree’s trunk that served as a ladder.

The car was barely parked before Rodney was out of it, rolling on the lawn with Finn in his arms, shrieking with laughter from the tickle he was getting.

John took his time sliding out of the treehouse, stopped beside their heads and lifted Finn off Rodney by his beltloops, much to their son’s delight.

“He gone?” John asked.

Rodney nodded.

John set Finn down on his feet, and Finn ran over to Burp to heap the same enthusiastic treatment on the dragon.

John sat down on the grass beside Rodney, leaned against his shoulder, lifted his right arm and pushed back his sleeve and kissed the long patch of smooth under-skin all the way up to his elbow, then back down to his wrist.

“Making sure I’m not him?” Rodney asked. His tone was light by his eyes were filled with dark, deep, thoughtful things.

“Maybe,” John admitted, turning and lifting his head so he could meet Rodney halfway for a hot, dirty kiss. “I kissed him,” John admitted as they pulled back.

Rodney blinked at John, waited for him to go on, not at all surprised, but John knew he wouldn’t be.

“By mistake,” John added. “I thought he was you. I’m sorry.”

“Hm,” Rodney said, eyes narrowed. “I don’t suppose it was technically cheating. It _was_ still Rodney McKay you were kissing.”

“But it wasn’t _you_ ,” John insisted.

“We were a lot a like,” Rodney pointed out.

“No, you’re _not!”_ John growled, pushed Rodney onto his back on the grass, straddled his pelvis and glared down into his eyes. “You’re you. You’re _mine_. And I’m sorry.”

Rodney’s narrow-eyed look of anger widened, broke into a real grin. “I was hoping you would say that. I forgive you.”

John lowered his head for another licking kiss, then whispered against Rodney’s cheek. “I love you the way you are. I only want you. You’re different.”

“Different?” Rodney prompted.

“He’s a coward,” John clarified, rubbing his stubble across Rodney’s cheek deliberately. “He may live on Atlantis with no ZPM to get home. He may go off-world and he may shoot Wraith and fight Genii, but he’s still a coward. He’s afraid to go after what he wants.”

“You mean, his Colonel Sheppard?”

John made a sound in the back of his throat. “Maybe. Maybe someone else, how should I know? All I know is that he’s _scared_. You’re not. You went for what you wanted. You kissed me _first._ And shut the hell up when I’m trying seduce you, Meredith Rodney McKay.”

“This is seducing?” Rodney said, lifting his hands to gesture at the wide Iowa sky, the green grass, the sounds of their son screaming with delight in the clean soil of the garden.

“Fuck yeah,” John said. “Is it working?”

Rodney grinned and leaned up and kissed John, and to John, that was a pretty damn good answer.


End file.
